The Ghosts of Bosworth
by Leda74
Summary: Encountering a team of ghost hunters at a stately home in 2013, the Doctor and his companions soon find themselves dragged into something infinitely more terrifying, because these 'ghosts' are far from benign. If that weren't enough, they must also deal with someone who's stranded more than five centuries out of his time...
1. Chapter 1

_Bosworth Field, 22 August 1485_

Shading his eyes against the brilliant spears of sunlight that occasionally pierced the ragged clouds, Richard urged his horse forward a few paces across the soft, dry turf and then lowered his head, sighting carefully between the animal's ears.

"So Oxford would outflank me, would he?" he said, his voice firm but quiet, and then straightened his spine once more and turned in the saddle, ignoring a dull ache in his shoulder as he did so. "Norfolk?" he said.

The Duke of Norfolk had remained at his king's side all night and through daybreak, and only death would free him of the sworn duty he held close to his heart. Nevertheless, he was a soldier of more than forty years' experience, and he had also been watching the far side of the marshes, where the Earl and his mercenaries were trying to remain under cover as they approached the foot of the hill. A poor attempt indeed, thought Norfolk with a contemptuous curve to his mouth; they moved through the bracken like lumbering beasts.

"Your Majesty?" he said, turning away from this study at last.

"Think you it is time to advance upon them?"

Inwardly, Norfolk sighed. The boy – grizzled veteran that he was, he persisted in fondly thinking of the young king as a boy – was clearly under a great deal of strain, and though it was understandable it was still not done for a king to seek advice on tactics from his subordinates, particularly on the very field of battle. However, the duke's own men were at a great enough distance that they could not possibly have heard Richard's words, let alone the sudden unease with which he had spoken them. No harm was done. Norfolk leant across the space between their mounts to address Richard a little more privately.

"Let Oxford come out into the open, sire," he said, softly. "There's no advantage to meeting him in yon spinney. He'll soon show his eyes, and when he does we'll cut him down as easily as winking."

It might be long enough at that, he mused, sitting up straight once more. Oxford suddenly appeared to be exercising all the caution of a virgin girl, hanging back in the last low shreds of the undergrowth on the sunward side of the marshland. For what purpose, he could not guess. Surely they did not think themselves unobserved? Unless...

Richard had also been thinking along these lines, it seemed. He stiffened at once and turned to the duke.

"Where are Northumberland's men?" he demanded, anxiety making his voice sharp and ugly. Norfolk raised one gauntleted hand to pacify the king.

"Be at ease, sire," he said, soothingly. "He has repaired to the far side of the rise to guard our left flank. He will not concede one yard of ground to the pretender."

Norfolk spoke as strongly as he could, hoping that his confident tone of voice would calm Richard's growing concern. Privately, however, he harboured doubts as to both Northumberland's stomach for battle and his allegiance; and whether coward or traitor, the man could only prove a hindrance to the king's battle to retain his crown. These doubts, however, he could see no sense in communicating to his monarch.

"Are his forces sufficient?" Richard was asking.

"Aye, sire," said the duke, his tone reassuring. "More than enough to best the sorry rabble they face this day."

"Then go," said Richard firmly, raising his head. "for I spy Oxford now. Take your men and see to him. I shall be quite safe with Northumberland's forces at my back."

"Sire, are you certain of this?"

"With your assurances and my knights?" Richard was almost smiling now, and he turned to wave a lazy hand at his mounted guard, stationed a few yards away, their armour glinting in the sunlight. "I am indeed. We'll have victory over these Lancastrian swine by noontime. Now go forth, and God be with you, John Howard."

The duke felt a twinge of sorrow at Richard's rare use of his given name; great friends though they were despite the considerable difference in age, between them both in public and in private, Norfolk and the king were careful to maintain every protocol. For Richard to break that understanding – here and now, with the fires of battle rising in their blood and the enemy at their threshold – was almost portentous, and Norfolk found himself studying every line and crease of the king's face as if it were the last time he would look upon the man.

Richard's dark blue eyes narrowed a touch in puzzlement at this sudden scrutiny. "Something ails you?" he asked. The old duke quickly shook his head in response and then forced a smile.

"God be with you also, sire," he said, then raised a hand to lower his visor. This done, he signalled his men to form up behind him, and then urged his horse down the gentle curve of the hill toward the foe now pouring out of the wood with their leader, the treacherous Earl of Oxford, some way ahead of the advance. Norfolk kicked at his horse's flanks once more and spurred it into a canter, drawing his broadsword as he went, his gaze fixed on his opposite number.

Norfolk turned his charging mount aside at the last second and took a single-handed slash at Oxford, but the man had prepared himself and brought his own weapon up in the lee of the duke's swing. The blow glanced across his visor as Norfolk reeled back to avoid it, all but falling from his horse, which staggered and danced beneath him as he hauled on the reins so hard he almost broke the beast's neck.

Grunting in annoyance, he dragged off his now broken and useless helmet and hurled it aside with an oath, staring at his enemy across the short space between them. Around the pair, their forces met and merged with the clatter of swords, while over their heads a flight of arrows filled the sky like deadly swallows. In the midst of this, the two nobles seemed locked in a cocoon of calm.

Just as Norfolk was readying his sword arm for another furious joust, however, he saw his opponent's face twist with horror, his eyes widening. The earl raised his visor, lifted a trembling hand and pointed at the hill behind the duke.

"Witchcraft..." he said, hoarsely.

Norfolk would have suspected a ruse, but there was something about the grey terror in the man's eyes that he knew at once was genuine; and, despite his every instinct, he brought his horse around to look back at the king's position. And what he saw, when he did, drove a wicked shard of madness through his unprepared mind.

Richard's knights had fled, leaving their monarch alone on the crest of the hill, and now the king's horse was rearing and dancing across the grass and threatening to throw its rider. The cause of its distress was clear for all to see; skeins of blue-white lightning were stabbing at the turf, surrounding the animal like the bars of a pen.

It plunged, turned, met another searing bolt of blue and stumbled back once more, its eyes rolling, and Richard lay low over its mane and hung on as best he could. The tinder-dry grass of the hill was now smouldering from the relentless blasts, and the smoke was only adding to the horse's fear. Then, over the crackling, there came another sound, like the cry of a great beast in a cave; a hollow, echoing howl that rose and fell. The duke could only stare as he saw the outline of a strange blue box appear as if from thin air, close to the king's position. It was no more than a sketch against the bright, clear summer sky, its vertical lines shimmering as if in a heat haze, and then it was gone just as swiftly as it had come.

The duke blinked, cleared his vision and then stared in disbelief. In the wake of the apparition, the dense web of lighting around the king seemed to intensify, and several things happened in rapid succession. The horse threw back its head and screamed, Richard lost his grip and tumbled from its back, and as soon as he touched the ground he was gone in a blinding white flash. The fire-show ceased at once, and the horse took to its heels, trailing a succession of panicked whinnies as it pelted into the wood behind the hill.

"_My king!_" roared Norfolk, abandoning his part in the fray at once and turning his horse back up the hill as arrows rained around him. He ignored them. He ignored Oxford, who had recovered from his shock and was now riding in hot pursuit. He ignored everything but the burning desire to find Richard and bring him back.

He reached the brow of the hill and vaulted from his horse, falling as he hit the ground and feeling a red stripe of pain shoot up his leg from his twisted ankle. This he also ignored, and staggered to his feet, brandishing his sword and calling out for the king over and over, his voice raw and broken.

He turned at the thunder of hooves and stumbled out of the way of Oxford's furious charge, ducking the man's vicious downswing before the wicked blade could cleave his skull. He saw the earl rein in his horse and swing around for another charge, this time taking more careful aim. Norfolk braced his feet against the dry earth and raised his sword above his head, determined to meet the assault with one of his own.

"Come, then, you dog!" he shouted; and as the horse bore down on him once more he stepped to the far side of it and hacked at Oxford's unguarded thigh. As he stumbled, however, his aim slipped and the tip of his sword carved a wide gash into the horse's hip instead. It reared with a cry of pain, lost its balance and then fell, trapping the earl's leg beneath it. Oxford struggled fiercely and briefly and then froze, looking around and up as his enemy approached, grinning in triumph, his blood-flecked broadsword lifted to shoulder height.

"This is ignominy!" snarled the earl, fighting to pull his pinned leg from beneath the groaning horse.

"No less ignominy than you've earned," snapped Norfolk, and spat at his feet before bracing himself, readying to dispatch the helpless man where he lay.

The air stilled at once, and in that breathless silence, the duke heard that strange, wailing sound once more. The air in front of him seemed to sparkle like a diamond and then solidified for the space of a single heartbeat. He reached out instinctively, and for a second felt a curious resistance against his palm, as if the very air had taken on form. Then both sight and sound of the strange apparition were gone, and all he could do was stand and stare in bewilderment, his hand still outstretched as he pawed at the clear air in front of his face.

Finally, he gave up and glanced down again at his foe. Oxford had dragged off his helmet and was staring levelly up at the duke, his face painted with sweat, his brows lowered and his jaw firmly set.

"Why do you not strike me dead?" he hissed.

"Where is the true king?" asked Norfolk, his voice rough. "How have you spirited him away?"

"I have not your bastard Richard!" said the earl. "Now strike and be damned!"

"No. You will not escape me so easily," the duke retorted, and then lifted his face to the sky. The sun drifted out from behind a soft veil of cloud and fell across his eyes, searing his vision for a moment, and so it was that the good John Howard, Duke of Norfolk and loyal servant of Richard Plantagenet, died. A stray arrow from the battle at the bottom of the hill plunged out of the sky and pierced his skull from front to back, a swift killing stroke.

The earl watched his stricken enemy fall, first to his knees and then to his face. Grinning savagely with a mixture of triumph and pain, he finally managed to drag his trapped leg out from beneath the injured horse and then climbed to his feet, testing his weight on that foot. No bones broken, he realised, thanks be to God.

He looked around now, studying the ongoing battle between his forces and Norfolk's, now leaderless and very much diminished. He would seek out a fresh mount and then return to the fray at his leisure, he decided. With Richard taken and his only warrior of any real mettle now lying dead on the ground, the outcome of the battle was a mere formality.

Oxford retrieved his helmet from the grass, and when he straightened up once more, he saw – as if by providence – Richard's stray horse, now calmed of its former terror and standing at the edge of a small copse, browsing peacefully on the long, tender grass that grew there. With a satisfied smile, the earl headed toward the animal at a slow walking pace, soothed it with a few choice words and then took it by the bridle, preparing to mount.

Before he took to the stirrup, though, some unregarded sense compelled him to turn his head and look back the way he'd come. Outlined against the sky and backlit by the sun as it climbed the sky, he saw a tall, square box. And then, before he'd had time to blink twice to be sure of his sight, the thing was gone like a wisp of smoke in the breeze.

The earl, though he lived in a deeply superstitious age, was not prone to superstition himself, and he immediately thought better of reporting this strange occurrence to either his own men or to Henry Tudor. It would only unsettle them, he knew, and he had no wish to question a piece of good fortune that had won them the kingdom with the battle barely begun.

Instead, he hauled himself up into the saddle and turned his mount away from the hill, heading back to the battlefield to assist his men in dispatching the last of Norfolk's vanquished men.


	2. Chapter 2

"Have we landed _this_ time?"

Victoria watched the Doctor fretting over the console as he moved from station to station. She'd been keeping her counsel so far as he made repeated attempts to land the old machine, but each time something had seemed to prevent them from materialising fully. The central column was groaning hideously now, causing her some concern.

"Doctor?" she said, when it eventually became clear that he either hadn't heard her original question or was deliberately ignoring it. Probably the latter, she thought to herself, unable to suppress a wry smirk.

"Yes, yes, I heard you," he said, sounding mildly harassed, and he glanced up at her briefly before returning his attention to the controls. "I've no idea what's going on. If I didn't know better, though, I'd say we were caught in a trans-temporal slip...but of course that would be ridiculous. Ah!" He cried in delight, as the TARDIS finally seemed to come to a halt and obediently powered down. "There we are. Problem solved."

Jamie had been dozing in the straight-backed chair on the far side of the control room with the determination of a man who'd long since learned to sleep almost anywhere, but now he opened his eyes, brushed a stray lock of hair off his forehead and cocked his head at the Doctor.

"Oh, finally got us doon, did ye?" he asked, then loosed a jaw-cracking yawn, which the Doctor evidently seemed to think was unnecessarily sarcastic. He planted his hands on his hips and glared at his young companions.

"Are you two poking fun at me?" he wanted to know. His sudden temper wasn't helped by the fact that Victoria's amusement, which she had so far been suppressing, now burst out onto her face in all its glory. The Doctor's eyebrows shot up at once, and she made a strenuous effort to control herself and compose her features.

"We're very sorry, Doctor," she said at last, shooting a glance at Jamie to make sure he was also looking suitably contrite. "What's a trans-temporal slip?"

The Doctor's face at once slid into the happy expression he always wore when he was about to explain something hugely complicated.

"Well, imagine time as a vast ocean, if you will," he said, waving his hands vaguely. "There are all these parallel streams, and normally they're all flowing at exactly the same rate. But just sometimes – and it's very rare indeed, mind you – two streams will be moving at different speeds. And when that happens, you get a...a sort of rip tide in time, d'you see?"

"I think so," said Victoria, carefully. She didn't see at all, but didn't want to disappoint the man's evident pleasure at having successfully negotiated this extended metaphor. "So, were we caught in one of these tides, then?"

"Oh no, no," said the Doctor. "As I said, they're extremely rare. It would mean the TARDIS was being pulled between two spatially contiguous events of enormous historical significance. And that hardly ever happens."

"But it does happen sometimes?" she asked, all innocence.

"Hardly ever," the Doctor repeated, with a dismissive flap of his hand. "Anyway, we seem to have stabilised now, so everything's all right."

"Aye, an' where've we heard _that_ before?" said Jamie, hauling himself out of the chair and stretching his limbs and spine. He pretended not to notice that the Doctor had shot him another foul look; Victoria, however, spotted this rising antagonism and stepped into the breach to try to cool things off.

"Where have we landed?" she asked the Doctor. For a split second he looked at her as if he'd never seen her before, then smiled brightly and sincerely and looked down at a nearby readout for a moment.

"England, in the early twenty-first century," he said, and then muttered something to himself, so quietly that she couldn't make it out.

"Is it safe out there?"

"Oh yes, perfectly safe," he replied, though he still seemed faintly preoccupied, and his eyes had flicked down to the console once more.

"Do I need to change my clothes at all?"

"No, I shouldn't worry about that," said the Doctor, briskly, looking back up immediately. "You'll find that people in this time period wear all sorts of peculiar things. You're unlikely to stand out."

"Right, 'cause ye look pretty peculiar yerself," said Jamie, from behind her shoulder. She spun around and smacked him on the arm, but he dodged away from her, laughing at her ineffectual attack. The Doctor sighed tolerantly as he watched his companions chase one another around the console like a pair of children, and then reached for the door lever.

* * *

"Professor? I think you'd better have a look at this."

Alice turned in her seat and beckoned to Professor Brand, who was going over some of her handwritten notes on the far side of the makeshift research laboratory. The older woman looked up at once, fiddled with her pen for a second and then clipped it to the top of the folder to mark her place before closing it. Finally, she rose from her chair and crossed the polished parquet floor, her footsteps echoing in the vast and mostly empty hall.

"Has there been another spike?" she asked, leaning over her student's shoulder to study the readout for the electromagnetic field sensors.

"Yes, a _huge_ one this time," said Alice, tapping the print-out with one finger, indicating the top line, which was feeding back regular readings from the sensors carefully positioned at the rear of the old house, near the rose gardens. A moment ago, all three of them had apparently registered a brief but very powerful surge in EM radiation.

"Impossible," the professor said brusquely, as she took a closer look. "Nothing on earth produces that kind of field strength. There must be a fault with the sensors. Have Sean check them when he comes back."

"But I checked them yesterday afternoon," Alice insisted, although she was by now addressing the professor's retreating back as the other woman returned to her interrupted studies at the desk on the other side of the great hall.

Alice allowed herself a resigned shrug before looking around at the hall of Twilling Manor. She'd spent the best part of two weeks now in the old house; eager, at first, for the chance to work with one of the most respected paranormal researchers in the country. However, so far her expectations – of Professor Brand, the surroundings, and the work involved – had all been a big let down. The professor had turned out to be an ill-minded woman who seemed to resent the slightest intrusion into her preferred modus operandi, and apparently regarded the presence of her two research students as a necessary inconvenience.

The house, though admittedly grand and surprisingly well kept, was basically a mausoleum full of ugly, heavy oak furniture covered in dust sheets. Not to mention the place was curiously chilly at night, even in the middle of summer.

As for the work...well, though she certainly hadn't anticipated a Ghostbusters-style adventure with added ectoplasm, Alice felt sure that something should have happened by now. _Anything_, in fact. As it was, it seemed as if the ghosts that were reputed to haunt the Manor had all packed up and left along with its living owners.

"Did you say you'd checked the sensors?" asked the professor, absently, looking back up from her notes as if Alice's words had only just filtered through to her.

"Yes, I checked them yesterday, just before dinner," said Alice, with perfect patience.

"Obviously not very thoroughly," said the professor, subjecting her to a long stare before looking down once more as if the young student had just been switched off.

Alice wisely bit back a rude retort just as it reached her lips, and instead levered herself out of her chair and headed for the kitchen, suddenly feeling in need of a very strong coffee, not to mention the chance to spend a few minutes away from the bad-tempered harridan to whom she'd hired body and soul for the whole of the summer break.

She stopped dead as she walked into the kitchen and saw Sean, his feet propped on the table, a mug in one hand and a book in the other; she glanced at the title – something about 'superstring theory' – and rolled her eyes a little. Sean, however, seemed completely oblivious to her arrival until she coughed quietly but pointedly.

"When did you get back?" she asked, as he raised his head.

"About half an hour ago," said the young Irishman cheerfully, draining his coffee and setting the mug down beside his book.

"And you've been hiding in here all that time?"

"Course I have," he said, quick as a whip, and then swung his legs down and looked at her with exaggerated kindness, his chin resting in his palm. "How is she today?"

Alice didn't answer at once. She refilled the kettle and switched it on, keeping her back turned. Only when she had her hands full did she turn back and sit down on the far side of the table, staring at him over the steaming coffee.

"She's a miserable old cow, same as always," she told him, bluntly, and then looked at him even more intently. "I don't know why _you're_ putting up with this," she said, her tone mildly accusing. "You don't even believe in ghosts. I know you don't. Why did you sign up for the program?"

"Well, it was either that or go back to Wicklow for the break," said Sean, lacing his fingers across his chest. "I couldn't afford the air fare."

"And you also didn't want to spend six weeks living with your parents," she said, a little maliciously, but he simply gave her a placid look in response.

"Yeah, that too," he said, eventually, through a one-sided smirk.

"You didn't fancy any of the other summer programs, though?"

"Nah, not much. I wanted something different, y'know?"

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, Alice had been trying to determine the measure of her fellow research student and, more to the point, his inexplicable presence on this particular assignment. He was a year above her, studying physics at Leicester, and she suspected that beneath his disaffected air and regular bouts of gentle highbrow sarcasm, he was quite probably one of the most intelligent people she'd ever known.

Was it possible, she mused, that he was only here for the chance to discredit Professor Brand's research for his own satisfaction? It would scarcely be necessary, she knew. Within her field, the professor was highly regarded, but it was also true that outside of that field, the area of paranormal research attracted very little besides muffled laughter and condescending comment.

If it was true that Sean was merely toying with the professor, she thought to herself, it was hardly fair that the woman still seemed to hold him in much higher regard than Alice.

All these clashing thoughts crossed her mind in a split second, but it did not occur to her to voice any of them. Instead she decided to continue with the small talk and, to that end, smiled brightly at him and said: "Good book, is it?"

He seemed vaguely surprised that she should ask. Picking up the book for a moment, he looked at it and then put it down with a thoughtful pout as he formulated a response.

"Not really," he said, at last, having apparently reached a conclusion. "It's got some good ideas, but basically the whole thing's a right old mess. Endless speculation and copious amounts of complete and utter guff. Can you believe this was the best thing they had in the library? I do despair," he finished, with a theatrical sigh, replacing his feet on the table.

Alice looked from Sean, to the book, and then back up again. He was wearing a winsome and ever so slightly smug smile, but then – she thought to herself – that was nothing new. Finishing her coffee, she got up and moved to the huge butler sink to rinse out her mug. Meanwhile, behind her, Sean retrieved his book and picked up where he'd left off, issuing the occasional scornful snort.

She dried the mug, replaced it on its hook, hung up the dish towel and then glanced out of the window. Only after a few seconds of silent bewilderment did she think to open her mouth and speak up.

"Sean?"

"Yeah?" He was still fully absorbed in the book, and didn't even look up.

"Sean, there's a police box in the garden..."


	3. Chapter 3

For a moment, Sean simply gazed at her over the top of his book, his expression a perfect blank. And then he tilted his head to one side and broke into an easy little grin.

"Okay, I give up," he said. "What's the punchline?"

"It's not a bloody joke," Alice insisted, craning over her shoulder for a second to frown at him. She then turned back and stood on tiptoe, grasping the windowsill, peering out at the garden once more through the slightly grimy window. "It's one of those old police phone boxes from the Sixties, you know? It's right in the middle of the rose-bed. The gardener's going to go mental when he sees it. I don't..."

She stopped. The doors of the box had opened, and someone was emerging. No; she corrected herself. Three people, shading their eyes against the bright summer sun and looking around with apparent interest.

"Well, I see the circus is in town, anyway," said Sean, from behind her shoulder. He had risen from his seat and was now looking past her at the strangers. Alice had to agree with this assessment: they made a very strange trio indeed. There was an older fellow in a scruffy, oversized black tailcoat and baggy checked trousers, a brawny young man in Highland dress, and a petite, dark haired girl who – just like the mysterious blue box – appeared to be a refugee from the flower power era, with her paisley print mini-dress and long strings of colourful beads.

"Should we tell the Professor?" Alice asked, quietly, not taking her eyes off the three as they picked their way through the roses to the raked gravel path and headed in the direction of the house.

"No way," Sean replied, with a little chuckle. "I'm bored off my backside and this looks like it could be a laugh. Let's at least find out what they want before that old dragon chases 'em off the property."

"And I suppose the fact that one of them's a girl in a short skirt is quite beside the point?"

She turned around at last and smirked at him, but he seemed entirely impervious, and merely affected a look of slighted honour, pressing one hand to his chest for that extra touch of pathos. She was about to concoct another cutting remark, but then the latch on the scullery door clonked and the hinges squeaked as the strangers entered the house.

"...would still like to find out what caused that little wobble in the – oh, I say. I do hope we're not trespassing?"

The little man had been talking animatedly to his companions as they entered the house, but now he pulled up sharp as he laid eyes on the two students, who were watching him with vastly differing expressions camped on their faces: Alice looked wary, and Sean was displaying mild anticipation seasoned with a dash of amusement.

"Well, you might be, my friend," said Sean, breaking the short but awkward silence. "But this isn't our house, so I'm not actually too bothered. Nice get-up, by the way. On the way to a Charlie Chaplin convention, are you?"

Alice snorted with entirely reflexive laughter, but then shook her head.

"I'm sorry," she said, addressing the newcomers directly. "This is my colleague Sean, and while he has one or two good points, he's incurably cheeky to complete strangers. My name's Alice. We're doing some research work here for the university. Were you looking for the tour guide?"

"Yes, we were," said the man, and though his expression was entirely neutral, his eyes were sparkling with intelligent curiosity as he spoke. "I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends, Jamie and Victoria. This really is a delightful old house, isn't it? Built in the Jacobean style, but not quite convincingly enough. No, it's a middle period Victorian folly, unless I'm very much mistaken."

"Designed in 1862 by the renowned architectural _wunderkind_, William Flatt," said Sean, a tiny smile now playing about the corner of his mouth. "You don't sound like you _need_ the tour guide."

"Possibly not," said the Doctor, "but in any event I find I'm suddenly far more intrigued by someone who reads quantum field theory during his tea break and uses words like 'wunderkind' without thinking twice." He leant over and picked up Sean's book, giving it a cursory examination. "What do you think of Feynman's theories?"

"Dear God, there's two of them," said Alice, not quite under her breath, but everyone else was apparently paying far too much attention to the unfolding conversation to listen to her.

"I think I've read better," said Sean, and left it at that.

"Well yes, if he'd listened to me, you probably would."

The Irishman looked perplexed, which was a rare sight.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," said the Doctor, with an artful little smile that was there and gone again in a split second, and then he seemed to recover his train of thought. "May we have a look around the place?"

"Sure, why not?" said Sean, with the slightest of shrugs. "But we should probably get back to work. Nice meeting you."

When the odd little party had left, closing the kitchen door behind them, Alice rounded on her fellow student with her hands on her hips.

"Sean! What were you thinking? What if they're burglars?" she said, hotly.

"What, looking like that?" he asked. "Besides, when I said _we_ were getting back to work, I meant _you_. I'm following them."

He winked at her, laid a finger across his lips and then slipped out of the door after the Doctor and his companions.

* * *

Jamie studied the house with no more than mild interest as the three travellers crossed the gleaming black and white tiled floor of the entrance hall. It was grander than anything he'd been accustomed to growing up in the Highlands, where the floor was usually covered in a nice dry layer of straw or rushes; although he assumed that Victoria, being a young lady of quality, must feel far more comfortable in such surroundings.

"It's just like Mr Maxtible's house," she said, as if reading his thoughts. Her voice sounded a little distant, and as they reached the foot of the grand, curving staircase that led to the upper floors, he turned and glanced at her expression. She seemed troubled.

"Hey now," he said, touching her shoulder lightly. "There's nae Daleks here."

"I know, but there's _something_ wrong with this place," she insisted, keeping her voice down. "Can't you feel it?"

"Cannae say as I do," said Jamie, confidently. He was not a man given to seeing shades and phantoms in every corner, and it often seemed to him that his young companion was a little over-sensitive at times.

"Well, the Doctor does," she said, nodding at the man as he reached the first landing ahead of them, clasped his hands behind his back and scrutinised the huge stained glass window there, which depicted a man in armour and a crown, brandishing a sword. "Why else would he want to look around this gloomy old place?"

"Och, I'm no' gonna try tae fathom him this time," said Jamie dismissively, leading her up the stairs. "'Sides, it all seems quiet right noo."

"Yes, and doesn't it always?" she retorted.

"Ye're feared o' ghosties and goblins?" he said, teasingly, but Victoria was evidently not in the mood for his friendly banter. She shot him an annoyed look and then trotted up the last few stairs to join the Doctor on the landing, where he was still running an appraising eye over the window, his face a study in deep thought.

"Is there something wrong, Doctor?" she asked him, taking his arm.

"No," he said, after a short silence, "but I'm curious about this. It appears to be a portrait of King Richard III, which is very odd indeed."

"Why is that so odd?" She turned to stare at the high window herself. It was beautifully detailed and, right now, glowing in the light of the sun. The artist had clearly lavished a great deal of love and skill on the portrayal, although it was peculiarly colourless. Apart from the battle pennants in the background and Richard's golden crown, the window was mostly picked out in shades of black, white and grey.

"Really, Victoria, your history tutor must have been a little lax," the Doctor chided her gently. "This is Lancastrian country. I wouldn't have expected to see a portrayal of Richard of York."

"But you said this house isn't very old," she pointed out.

"True, but humans have long folk memories and they do tend to harbour ancestral grudges, sometimes for centuries," he told her, with a small twist of disapproval in his expression. "Even if it's not contemporary, this window is still quite out of place. Hmm."

Victoria knew that 'hmm' well enough by now. It was a simple little vocalisation that invariably indicated vast wheels of intellect were turning behind the Doctor's unaffected façade. He had an enviable talent for spotting the tiniest, most insignificant little details and slotting them together.

"Does it have aught to do wi' the landing problems we had?" asked Jamie, wrinkling his nose in confusion as he glanced between the window and the Doctor.

"Yes. It might..." said the Doctor, stroking his chin distractedly for a second as his voice seemed to wander away from him, and then he visibly shook himself. "I think it might be wise to find out _exactly_ where we are."

"How do we do that?" said Victoria.

"Well, there are a number of ways we could go about it," said the Doctor, with a sudden turn of good cheer, "but I should think the easiest is to ask the fellow who's been eavesdropping on us for the last few minutes. Sean, isn't it?" he added, turning back the way they'd come and staring at the hapless amateur spy, who had the good grace to blush as he stepped out of the shadows at the foot of the staircase.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't – "

"Yes, you were," said the Doctor, pleasantly, "but it's quite all right. We're not up to anything nefarious, I assure you. Besides, in your position I'd probably be wary of us as well. With the circus in town, and all..."

The Doctor left the sentence hanging in the air between them, and despite himself Sean experienced a brief but powerful twinge of personal discomfort. The Doctor couldn't _possibly_ have heard him say that. It had to be a coincidence. The man's strange little smile indicated otherwise, however. Sean gave up and climbed the stairs, trying to regain some of his composure on the way.

"How can I help you?" he asked, suddenly very keen to change the subject.

"Well, I was wondering what our position is?" asked the Doctor, politely.

"We're about four miles north of Hinckley."

"Perhaps a little more precisely than that?" said the Doctor. "Do you have a global positioning device about your person?"

It was an odd turn of phrase, so the request took a second to filter through Sean's residual bafflement. Once it had, though, he fished his mobile phone out of his hip pocket and unlocked it, activating the GPS. The Doctor, without hesitation – and also without asking – reached over and plucked it from his hand, examining the co-ordinates that had been fed back from the satellites. And then, as Sean watched, the man's brow furrowed for a second.

Finally, he handed the phone back and straightened his tie. Sean recognised displacement activity when he saw it, but said nothing.

"Well, that explains the...yes, thank you, anyway," said the Doctor, neatly overruling himself in the middle of a sentence. "We'll be getting on now. Still got the tapestries to look at. Come along, you two!" he said to his companions, and with an airy wave of his hand he took the right-hand flight of stairs and bounded up them two at a time, disappearing smartly through the Gothic arch at the top. Sean, Jamie and Victoria were left staring after him, open-mouthed.

Had they turned around in that moment, they might have seen the translucent, faceless figure at the bottom of the staircase, watching them in turn, one amorphous grey hand resting on the carved newel. But then a spear of sunlight struck the stained glass window and lit up the hall below in pastel colours...and in the sudden flare of light, the spectre faded away.


	4. Chapter 4

When the Doctor's companions caught up with him, he was halfway along the darkened passageway, leaning against the wood-panelled wall and catching his breath.

"Doctor, what on earth is the matter?" Victoria asked, approaching him slowly and carefully. He shushed her with a frantic gesture, however, and peered cautiously past her shoulder at the head of the stairs. Only when he seemed satisfied that they were alone did he unwind his stance and draw her a little closer.

"I think I've managed to embarrass that young man out of following us any further," he said, softly, "but we can't be too sure."

"What were you saying about tapestries?"

"Tapestries? In a Victorian manor house? Don't be silly."

"But you said – " Victoria stopped herself at that point and deliberately realigned her sights. Keeping up with the Doctor when he was in full flow was all but impossible; the most one could hope for was to try to catch up when the conversation turned a corner. "So, where are we?" she asked, instead. "Wherever it is, it seems to be worrying you."

The Doctor didn't answer at once, but merely angled his head at the far end of the corridor, indicating that Jamie and Victoria should accompany him; and as he walked, he explained. His speech was littered with pauses as if he were still marshalling his thoughts as he went.

"This house seems to be located exactly on the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field," he said. "A huge event in the space-time continuum, marking the end of the Plantagenet dynasty and the beginning of the Tudor reign. Of course it caused significant ripples in time. Of course it did. It's only to be expected, after all."

He seemed to be talking to himself now, more or less. Jamie, at the Doctor's side, was trying his best to understand what the man was saying, and after a hesitant moment, he mustered a question.

"So that's why the TARDIS ran intae a wee spot o' bother?" he asked. He felt proud of himself for this relatively modest contribution, but in response, the Doctor merely turned an impatient frown on the young Scot.

"What? No, no," he said, irritably, waving a hand through the air. "That wouldn't be enough to cause us any problems. Not nearly enough. No," he went on, turning the corner and leading the way down a long, narrow portrait gallery, lit on one side by leaded windows that overlooked the driveway at the front of the house, "it doesn't explain a thing. Not in isolation. There's something else I've overlooked, and I really don't like it when I overlook things."

"Like the ghosts?" said Jamie. The Doctor reacted at once, turning over his shoulder with a passing look of bafflement, which was just as quickly replaced by one of very mild annoyance.

"What ghosts?" he asked, hoisting an eyebrow.

"Says here this hoose is supposed tae be haunted," Jamie told him. He'd paused to examine a rack of leaflets set against the wall, and now he turned back and handed one of these to the Doctor. Victoria leant across his shoulder to examine it as well. It showed a picture of the house itself by night, with forked tongues of blue lightning crossing the dark, cloud-strewn sky, while in the foreground, a laughably stereotypical spectre loomed.

"Oh well, yes," said the Doctor, after a short interval and a vaguely mocking chuckle. "The merest hint of a haunting and the visitors come flocking. A very shrewd move on the part of the owners, I must say."

"You don't believe in ghosts, then?" asked Victoria, looking up at his face quizzically.

"Not ones that walk around with their head tucked under their arm," he said, tapping the picture on the front of the leaflet with a mischievous grin. "I very much doubt this is of any relevance...but still, it pays to keep an open mind," he added, after a second's thought. And then he folded the leaflet in two and stowed it away in one of his capacious pockets before setting off once more, heading for the door at the far end of the long gallery.

"Doctor, is it dangerous here?" asked Victoria, casting a brief glance at Jamie as she finally voiced the one thing that was on both their minds. The Doctor stopped beneath a dreary brown oil painting of what was presumably a local church and looked at her very kindly.

"I'm afraid I don't know," he said. "But I have to investigate matters, because there's something here that just doesn't add up, and it might be even more dangerous if we leave now. Let's just hope for the best, shall we?"

He patted her shoulder reassuringly and then opened the door to reveal a huge, low-ceilinged bedroom full of shrouded furniture. Jamie, after a helpless, one-sided shrug, followed him. Victoria lingered in the gallery, however, nervously glancing back the way they'd come. She had considerable reserves of common sense, but beneath these, her instincts were stirring fitfully; and something was telling her that despite the Doctor's assurances, they would do much better to leave this house at once. She peered through the open doorway after the two men, but couldn't see them now for the dust sheets.

She hesitated for a second more and then, firmly and finally overruling her gut feeling for the moment, walked through into the room beyond.

As she did so, someone snaked an arm around her shoulder and pressed a cold blade to her throat.

* * *

In Sean's absence and for want of any other option, Alice returned to the laboratory, where she found Professor Brand fiddling irritably with the instruments. The woman turned over her shoulder for a second, her expression drawing in as she spotted her assistant.

"Where have you been?" she wanted to know, but then changed tack without waiting for a reply. "Never mind that now. We've just had a massive temperature drop in the master bedroom on the first floor. Four point six degrees in less than ten seconds."

"That's incredible!" said Alice, her voice hushed. She moved to the professor's side to examine the tracer, and indeed, the black line recording data from the thermometer in the main bedroom had swooped downward with shocking alacrity. As she watched, another followed it, then another. She heard the professor mutter something to herself, quite inaudibly, and then turn away, seeking the monitors that were serving the four video cameras located on the next floor.

They were nothing but a mess of static, however. The professor sighed sharply and made some adjustments, but all to no avail. And then, to Alice's surprise – she had never before seen the professor lose her temper – she dealt a frustrated blow to the instrument panel with the heel of her hand.

"Go up there and see what's going on," she said, straightening up. She spoke without turning her head, so it was a few seconds before Alice realised that the order had been directed at her. She jumped on the spot and hurried for the door that led to the entrance hall, but just as she was reaching for the handle, the older woman called after her.

"For goodness' sake, girl, take the camera with you," she said with poorly tried patience, waving a hand at the end table. Alice ducked her head in mute apology, retrieved the small handheld video camera and left the room, her face burning with a mixture of shame and anger.

"You shouldn't let her get to you," said a familiar voice. She stopped in the middle of the floor and raised her head to see Sean, sitting on the lower steps of the main staircase with his elbows on his knees, looking at her with evident sympathy.

"It's all right for you," she told him, wearily. "You've got the hide of an elephant."

"I'll try to take that as a compliment," he said, wryly.

"It is, more or less. I wish I had the stomach for this."

"You've done all right so far," he replied, getting to his feet and straightening his clothing. "Three more weeks and you'll be out of here with your reputation intact. Which might be more than we can say for Professor Brand," he added, meaningfully.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked. There had been a note of portent in those last words she hadn't liked at all.

"Come on," he said, "we both know the University was quite happy to shell out a fourteen grand research grant to shut her up and get her out from under their feet."

"And that's why you're here, is it? To gloat about that?"

"I have my reasons for being here," he said, looking genuinely hurt, "but that's not one of 'em. Anyway, why are _you_ defending her?"

Alice was lost for words for a moment, because the question was entirely valid. She'd cast enough aspersions on the professor herself, when the woman was out of earshot. But she knew, at the same time, that there was a clear difference between criticising the professor's choleric disposition and pouring scorn on her life's work.

Still, she didn't feel in the least like getting into an argument with Sean at that point, and especially not over a matter on which they were probably never going to find any common ground. Instead, she said: "What happened to those tourists? Did you follow them?"

"Yeah," he said, now looking faintly uncomfortable. "They're a bunch of weirdoes if you ask me, but there's no harm in 'em."

"Fair enough," Alice replied, and then mounted the steps. "Anyway, you can come with me if you want. The first floor video cams have gone down and she wants me to find out why."

Sean responded with no more than an affable shrug, and together they headed up the second flight of stairs to the portrait gallery. After a moment, though, he spoke up again.

"Is it me," he said, "or is it getting cold in here?"

* * *

"_Doctor!_"

The shrill cry had been entirely reflexive, but as the wicked blade fetched up beneath her chin and dented her soft flesh to the point of pain, Victoria's sense of self-preservation cut in and stilled her tongue. Nevertheless, she saw the Doctor and Jamie dart out of the shadows on the far side of the huge, cluttered bedroom and then stop in horror at the sight that met their eyes.

The Scotsman, naturally, was already reaching for his own knife, but the Doctor grabbed his arm and held it fast, well away from the handle of the Highland dirk.

"No, Jamie, don't provoke him," he said, hoarsely. "He'll kill her."

"What is this place?"

Victoria had frozen on the spot, but she couldn't help but flinch as her captor spoke, his mouth a bare inch from her ear and his voice harsh and jagged with what sounded like a blend of fear and fury. He'd encircled her waist with his free arm, pulling her tight against him, and from the feel of it he was wearing some kind of armoured breastplate; it was cold and unyielding against her shoulders.

She kept her head quite still and her gaze fixed upon the Doctor. The sight of him was the only thing standing between her and unrestrained panic.

"We mean you no harm, sire," the Doctor was saying, his hands raised and his voice betraying only the tiniest hint of the frightened concern in his eyes. "You are among loyal subjects here. Let the girl go, I beg of you."

Jamie's knife hand was still poised at his belt and his stare unblinking, but now he couldn't help but shoot the Doctor a quick, puzzled glance. He'd been studying the man holding Victoria hostage, and while it was true that he was wearing a simple gold crown, apart from this detail he looked like a mud-stained vagabond with a feral gleam in his eye. Why was the Doctor addressing this ruffian as 'sire'? Presumably to humour him, Jamie decided.

"Where are my knights?" demanded the stranger, tightening his grip on Victoria's waist until she yelped, and struggled against his crushing hold quite instinctively. Disorientated, he seemed unprepared for this, and his grip slackened for a second. Taking advantage of that moment of confusion even through a thick fog of terror, she pushed at his other hand, forcing the blade away from her throat, and then – miraculously – wriggled out of his grasp altogether.

Jamie, his muscles already tensed for action, needed no prompting. He sprang forward, grabbed Victoria by the shoulder and thrust her aside, out of the stranger's reach. And then he drew back a fist and drove a sledgehammer punch into the man's temple, which slammed him back against the door hard enough to rattle the hinges before he dropped to the floor in a loud clatter of loose armour.

Then there was dead silence, broken only by the sound of Victoria's breathless sobs.


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor found Victoria cowering against the foot of the grand four poster bed, helped her to her feet and wrapped a comforting arm around her as she drew a series of hitching breaths between sobs. She was shaking like a leaf, and he examined her for signs of injury, but though she was white-faced and tearful, she was, thankfully, unscathed.

Jamie, meanwhile, was clutching at his bruised knuckles and cursing softly but fluently. The man, whoever he was, clearly had a skull of solid granite. Finally, as the pain consented to ease, he looked down at the figure sprawled against the door, his lip curling with mild contempt as he did so. However, it wasn't long before his quiet contemplation of victory was interrupted by the Doctor.

"Help me pick him up, Jamie, please," he said; and then, as the Scot watched in bewilderment, the little man bent and retrieved the assailant's crown, setting it aside on a nearby dresser with what was clearly reverent care. Then, out of nowhere, bewilderment was supplanted by irritation.

"Doctor, I dinnae ken if you noticed," he said, as sarcastically as he could, prodding his fallen foe with the toe of his boot, "but this streak o' water tried tae – "

"I really don't have the time to explain just now," said the Doctor, turning around and subjecting him to a surprisingly cool stare, given the circumstances. "So if you'll just do as I ask, I would appreciate it."

Jamie opened his mouth, perhaps unwisely, but just as quickly shut it once more and then, giving in, helped the Doctor to lift the unconscious man and heave him over to the bed. In truth, though, the task required less effort than he'd suspected: beneath the battered armour, Jamie realised that the fellow, though wiry and strong, was slightly built, and once he was laid out on the quilt he looked considerably less threatening than before.

All three of them stared down at him for a moment without speaking, and then Victoria broke the brief silence.

"Who is he?"

"I'm not sure," said the Doctor, but Victoria was watching his expression very closely, and it told a different story. He _did_ know, she was certain of it. However, she'd long since learned that the Doctor had made an art form of evasion, and if he didn't wish to discuss the matter at present, no amount of asking would change his mind.

Jamie, however, had fewer reservations about speaking his mind. "Should we no' tie him up or somethin'?" he asked, his hands on his hips.

"No. When he wakes up, it's important that he trusts us," said the Doctor. "And to that end, we must show a little good faith. Perhaps not _too_ much, though..." he added, stooping to pick up the dagger, which he handed to Jamie. Then he busied himself for a second, unbuckling the man's belt and removing the heavy leather scabbard.

Examining the hilt of the sword, he turned it to and fro against the light, which caught the inlaid gemstones and reflected their sparkle across his eyes, which were narrow and thoughtful. Finally, he turned and stowed the weapon out of sight in the folds of a nearby dust sheet. And then, as if he'd reached the end of some mental checklist, he rubbed his palms together and straightened up, looking bright and cheery once more...but it was a forced and brittle cheerfulness, as if it were masking something altogether more unpleasant.

The Doctor seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but then he cocked his head at the door, hearing voices from the gallery; they were distant, but coming closer. Galvanised, he pointed at the man on the bed.

"Keep an eye on him," he said. "I should think he'll be out cold for a while yet and I don't really want to have to explain things to our friends downstairs until I've worked out what's going on." He edged toward the door, his steps catlike, and peered through the gap before turning back. "I'll keep them occupied for a while. Lock the door after me." And then he was gone, pulling the door closed in his wake.

Victoria obediently hurried over and turned the large, ornate key in the lock, thought for a second or two, and then stood on tip-toe to draw the bolt as well. Then, at something of a loss, she turned back to take a closer look at the man on the bed.

Although his face was a little lined about the eyes and looked slightly careworn, his skin was otherwise quite smooth and free of blemishes, and she judged him to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He had shoulder length hair so dark it was almost raven black, currently tangled and stringy with grime. His jaw and brow were strong and well defined, but his mouth was contrastingly full, almost feminine.

"We should at least make him a little more comfortable," she said to Jamie, firmly, and then set about removing his breastplate, struggling with the stiff buckles for a moment before dropping it to the floor with a melodious _clang._ She then squared her shoulders in a remarkably ladylike way and turned to the rest of his armour. Jamie sat down on the far side of the huge bed and watched this performance in disbelieving silence for a few moments before clearing his throat meaningfully.

"By any chance," he said, slowly, "am I the only one aroond here who's no' taken leave o' their senses?" he asked. "He had a knife tae yer neck, and now ye're fussin' over him?"

"He was frightened," she chided him, glancing up only briefly as she tried to work out how to deal with the layer of chain mail. "I can forgive him for that. Now will you please fetch some clean water? I think there's a bathroom through the door over there."

He stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

"Now, Jamie," she said, pointing at the doorway in the far corner of the room.

Once he had left the room, grumbling fiercely all the way, Victoria waited until she heard the splash of water and then finally wrestled the recalcitrant chain mail off its owner. This involved a certain amount of puffing and panting on her part, since the garment came down to his knees and she had to lift the hem and then tug it over his head. It was a wonder he'd even been able to stand up beneath the weight of all that metal, she thought. Beneath it all he was wearing nothing but a fine white linen undershirt and a pair of close-fitting woollen hose.

Victoria suddenly realised that her idly wandering gaze might be construed as prurient, and lifted her eyes to his face once more...where she found him looking back at her.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she was preparing to back away when he raised a hand.

"Stay, girl. I'll not threaten you any more," he said, his voice cracking a little before he coughed gently. In the lee of this he actually smiled a little, and despite herself, Victoria returned the expression.

"I'm terribly sorry my friend hit you," she said, feeling a pressing desire to get that particular issue resolved as quickly as possible, in case it resulted in further unpleasantness once Jamie returned from his errand to the bathroom. And none too soon, she told herself, as she heard footsteps behind her, accompanied by a short oath as Jamie – by the sound of things – spilled some water on the floor on his way back. She did not turn, but nevertheless she saw the man's clear blue eyes flicker past her shoulder for a second before returning to her face.

"I cannot reproach a man for defending his lady," he said, and then tried to struggle up from his supine position, as if being seen so weak and helpless in front of another male was not to be borne. Instinct tried to compel Victoria to lend assistance, but some sixth sense told her this wouldn't be welcomed. Instead, she merely folded her hands and waited until he'd propped himself up against the pillows, and then turned to take a china bowl of hot water from Jamie's hands.

The man glanced at this, and for a moment, a puzzled expression drifted across his face. And then he turned his gaze on Jamie, who was watching him with ongoing suspicion.

"Pray forgive me," he said, in earnest. "I found myself alone amongst strangers and assumed you were allied with Henry."

"Henry who?" said Jamie, sticking out his jaw, still broadcasting the prospect of further violence if the other man should make any sudden moves. At this question, the confused cast returned to the man's eyes and, this time, remained there.

"Why, Henry Tudor, of course," he said, speaking in tones that suggested he doubted Jamie's sanity.

Victoria froze, as if a chill wind had just crossed the back of her neck. Several reactions were now lining up behind her carefully immobile features, but she managed to restrain them all just in time. She set the bowl of water and the cloth down on the beside stand, within the man's reach, and then took Jamie by the elbow and ushered him to the far side of the bedroom. She shoved him behind a free-standing wooden screen and then lowered her voice.

"He's Richard the Third!" she hissed, and then glanced across the bedroom and amended her initial words. "Or at least he _thinks_ he is, anyway. The Doctor called him 'sire'! I know you heard it too. Can it really be him?"

Jamie's brow was now deeply furrowed. "Ye mean the fella on the painted windae?" he asked, struggling with the enormity of Victoria's statement.

Yes, him!"

"But he's long deid, isnae he?"

"If what the Doctor said is correct, yes," said Victoria, nodding. "Richard died on this very spot in 1485." She stopped, and then turned her face aside a little. "I knew something wasn't right, and I knew the Doctor had sensed it too. Oh, Jamie, this isn't good at all."

She looked up into his eyes and then grasped his hand, squeezing it tightly. Not out of fondness, but out of fear.

"What's the problem?" Jamie asked, softly, clearly understanding that the alleged king – who was now sitting up on the edge of the bed and attempting to wipe some of the filth from his face – shouldn't overhear any of this. "Ye and me are both oot o' our own times too, aren't we?"

"But we travelled here in the TARDIS," she pointed out. "Which makes...well, it makes some sense, anyway," she corrected herself, with a small concession to the inherent strangeness of their itinerant existence aboard the old time ship. "_He_ didn't. But if he hasn't got something to do with the reason we had such trouble landing, well, I shall be very surprised indeed."

She stood back a step to gauge Jamie's reaction to this, but from the astonished gleam in his eye, she saw that something else had occurred to him, and she had a shrewd idea what it was; a suspicion that was confirmed by his next words.

"So I thumped the King o' England?" he said, his voice a little unsteady.

"I'm afraid you did, yes," she said. Against her better nature, the look on her companion's face was causing her no end of amusement. He seemed to be in shock. Just then, however, his stunned expression fled and was replaced by one that looked, instead, an awful lot like satisfaction.

"Weel, it'll be somethin' tae tell the clan," he said, through a rising smirk. "Nae McCrimmon ever landed a blow on royalty afore."

"Jamie, it's _not_ something to be proud of," she scolded him, but to no avail.

It was clear that he was going to be processing recent events for some time yet, so she decided to leave him to it. She sighed theatrically, rolled her eyes at him for good measure and then turned back to see how Richard was faring.

The sight that met her eyes turned the world into an icy pool of horror at once. As the sun drifted behind a bank of cloud, the room grew dim, and the shadows in the corners seemed to leap and gather, as if preparing to pounce. The colour leached from everything at once, leaving the scene lit in sepia tones.

And as the warm sunlight faded and died, she could see a shifting, wavering figure in armour approaching the bed on silent feet, drawing its sword as it went.


	6. Chapter 6

The two students turned the corner and came face to face with the Doctor, who was leaning against the wall and idly perusing a brochure on local places of interest. He closed the leaflet, put it neatly back in the rack and treated them both to a bright, accommodating smile.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

Alice was lost for words. She hadn't expected to find anyone in the gallery, let alone to be greeted with such a disconcerting phrase. Consequently, she stuttered for a second before finding her voice.

"We...er, well, we have to check some of our equipment up here," she said, pointing over his shoulder at the door to the master bedroom. She watched the man turn, following this gesture, and then return his attention to her just as swiftly. He was still smiling, and she wondered why that bothered her so much all of a sudden.

"May I speak with you for a moment?" he asked, with yet another mystifying change of course. "I promise I won't take up much of your time."

"Sure, no problem," said Alice, and then inwardly cursed her British politeness, ingrained since birth. The response had been entirely automatic, and she had a feeling that she was going to regret it in the fullness of time. Still, she tried to salvage the situation as best she could. "Sean," she said, glancing up at him, "can you check the – "

"Both of you, if you please," said the Doctor, cutting across her words quite adroitly, and with such obvious gentility that it didn't occur her to consider it at all rude. In lieu of any further objection, she simply nodded, and then the man angled his head at the other end of the passage, indicating the doors to the upstairs drawing room. She exchanged frowns with Sean, and then the two of them followed the Doctor as he led the way along the plush red carpet and into the room beyond.

By the time they'd caught up with him, he was already quite at home. In fact, he was lying on a nearby chaise, his feet neatly crossed and his hands behind his head.

"I wonder if I might ask you about these ghosts?" he said, before either of the students had a chance to speak up. "I suspect you're much better placed to give me the potted history, miss," he said, flopping onto his side and gazing up at Alice; she was struck at once by his wide, innocent blue eyes – _seemingly_ innocent, she added to herself, amending that observation after the fact – and then perched on the armchair opposite with her hands laced on her knees.

"Why me?" she asked.

"Well, your friend doesn't believe in any of this, does he?" said the Doctor, without looking around at Sean. The young man snorted slightly.

"You know that for sure, do you?" he asked, folding his arms challengingly. Unlike Alice, he had remained in the doorway, and now he leant his shoulder against the door with what he evidently felt was subtly scathing insouciance.

"Goodness me, you're a scientist to the core, aren't you?" said the Doctor, by way of reply, and now he directed a gentle but very pointed stare at Sean. "In my experience, you can always rely on a physicist to question even the most self-evident conclusions."

"Is there something wrong with that?"

"Heavens above, no. Nothing wrong with that at all," said the Doctor, smoothly, and then visibly paused to regroup his thoughts before returning his attention to Alice. "Anyway," he went on, focusing on her so intently that she recoiled a little, "what can you tell me about the history of these hauntings?"

"Well..." she began, a little uncertainly, and then rallied. "The unusual thing about these sightings is that they appear to date right back to the time the house was built. We're fairly sure that the architect himself saw a number of manifestations here during construction, which may have been what drove him insane. Twilling Manor was his last work. He was committed to an asylum the following year and died there in 1871, at the age of thirty."

She hesitated at that point, but the Doctor nodded encouragingly, and she picked up the thread once more.

"The place hasn't been consistently occupied by any means," she went on. "Nobody seems to want to stay here for very long. As well as the ghost sightings, people also report a...a bad atmosphere," she said, waving a hand vaguely for a moment. "Negative feelings of all kinds. Hostility, grief, fear, jealousy, that sort of thing. The latest owners left last month. They said they'd be back after the summer, but I don't think they will."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because they're right," Alice replied, with a tiny glance at Sean, who hadn't moved in the slightest. "I've been living here for fifteen days now and I can feel it for myself. If I didn't have important work to do here I would have left after the first night. And it's worse at night. It even gets into your mind, this place. I keep having dreams about blood, and swords, and screaming."

"But you haven't seen any actual ghosts since you arrived, have you?" said the Doctor. She had a feeling that he'd only phrased this as a question in order to observe the formalities.

"Not one," she said. "The instruments have been going haywire lately, but there hasn't been a single manifestation. Just this awful, evil atmosphere. And the thing is," she said, shaking her head as something occurred to her, "I really don't know why I'm telling _you_ all this...I don't even know you."

He didn't seem inclined to respond to this. At that moment, in any case, the room dimmed considerably as the sun sailed behind a thick scrap of cloud. The Doctor reacted to this as if it had disturbed him far more effectively than Alice's ghost stories, and he sat bolt upright now, rubbing at his elbows as if warding off a sudden chill.

"Scary stuff, very creepy indeed," he said, heartily, and then he turned to Sean. "So, what do you make of all this, then?" he asked.

"I'm the team cynic," said Sean, acidly. "I would have thought that was obvious. As it happens, you're right," he went on, moving further into the room at last and sparing Alice and the Doctor a glance apiece. "I don't believe in ghosts. Belief isn't part of the scientific method."

"But supposing you _were_ trying to come up with a scientific explanation for these sightings?" the Doctor asked, giving the clockwork another turn. His voice was perfectly mellifluous, but there was something about the gleam in his eye that contradicted it. "Call it a hypothesis. You don't have anything against hypothesising, do you?"

"Certainly not," said Sean, with a gleam of his own.

"Well, then?" The Doctor cocked his head to one side, the gesture faintly provocative.

The younger man was about to muster a response – and probably a cutting one, at that – when Professor Brand walked through the door at such a pace that she almost ran into Sean. Stepping around him, she swept the room with a gaze that quite neatly encapsulated equal amounts of puzzlement and annoyance; and then, as it landed on the Doctor, her expression solidified. This was not an improvement.

"Who on earth are you?" she asked.

* * *

Victoria's reaction was entirely instinctive; reason played no part in her response to the sight before her.

Pulling away from Jamie, she ran back to the other side of the room and seized Richard's arm, trying to drag him away from the advancing apparition. It seemed she'd taken him by surprise, as he drew back and frowned at her.

"What's possessed you, girl?" he asked. He was mostly taken aback, but there was a thin seam of anger running through his expression as well; and a little too late, Victoria remembered that she'd just laid hands on the king, which was probably no more acceptable in the fifteenth century than at any other point in history. She caught a sharp breath, hastily removed her fingers from his shoulder and then turned to indicate the ghost – which wasn't there.

But Richard had been looking at it. She'd seen that much, even from across the room and even in her terror. _He'd been looking right at it and he hadn't seen it_. Small wonder that he'd reacted to her recent actions as if she were a madwoman.

"Well?" he asked, still staring at her. "Explain yourself."

Victoria met that piercing gaze only with the greatest of difficulty. She didn't know whether or not it was protocol to look the monarch right in the eye, but she wanted to watch his reaction as carefully as she could as she spoke. She was not a natural liar by any means, but this time, the truth was going to be far more uncomfortable for her than any story she'd ever concocted.

"I thought I saw a ghost at your side, your Majesty," she said, forcing calm upon her voice as she spoke. "I was afraid for your safety."

"I saw nothing," said Richard, a little brusquely, but in that moment, his eyes softened considerably; and Victoria finally breathed out. It seemed that he was prepared to accept that she had acted in sincerity. Just then, though, she watched his expression cloud over once more.

"This has indeed been a day of portents," he said, sounding distinctly ill at ease for a moment, "but I think I would feel all the better for a report on our losses in the battle. Where is your master?" he asked, looking expectantly from Jamie to Victoria.

"Our master?" she asked. This caused a transitory flicker of impatience in Richard's eyes, but he smothered it at once with good grace.

"The strange fellow you called 'Doctor'," he reminded her.

"Oh! Yes," said Victoria, with an entirely unplanned blush. "I think he's busy, but I'll see if I can find him for you," she said, and then – bobbing a curtsey on general principles – she retreated, fielding Jamie along the way and pulling him through the connecting door. Once inside the small, blue and white-tiled bathroom she nudged the door all but closed and then whispered to him.

"What now?"

"Nae matter who breaks it tae him," said Jamie, "I dinnae expect yon kingie's gonnae take the news well when he finds oot he's five hundred years adrift in time. But all the same I'll no' be the one tae explain," he added, shaking his head fiercely.

"No, nor me," said Victoria, just as emphatically. "But we still have a problem. Richard wants to speak to the Doctor, and I get the feeling that he's probably not used to being kept waiting."

"Oh aye? Ye're on first name terms now, are ye?"

There had been a soft but unmistakeable harmonic in Jamie's voice, which caused her to stare at him as if he'd just sprouted a second head. She was utterly amazed that he could still find the time to be jealous under such frightening and extraordinary circumstances. But then again...she readjusted her sights and looked him in the eye.

"Jamie, did _you_ see anything unusual just now?"

"What d'ye mean, unusual?" he asked.

"If you need to ask, then obviously you didn't," she said, with a helpless sigh.

There was a knock on the bedroom door, which neatly derailed her train of thought. Shepherding Jamie out of the bathroom ahead of her, she paused to hiss into his ear.

"Answer that," she said, and then moved to take Richard's hand. This time, though he seemed just as surprised at her familiarity, he wasn't angry. He slid off the bed and got to his feet, where he swayed a little, either due to a sudden rush of blood to the head or because he was still slightly concussed. Victoria tightened her grip on his hand and then led him to a closet in the corner.

"Please trust me, sire, and hide for a moment," she said, ushering him into the cramped and darkened space beyond. "You might still be in great danger."

"I have never fled from danger," he said, firmly.

"Perhaps it's time you started," said Victoria, and closed the door.


	7. Chapter 7

Jamie struggled with the lock for a moment, cursing under his breath, then opened the door to see the Doctor looking very serious indeed.

"Where's the king?" he asked quietly, wasting no time.

"In yon closet," said Jamie, angling his head at the other side of the room.

This was followed by a short but extremely awkward silence.

"I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for that," said the Doctor, his eyebrow curling, "but it'll have to wait for now. Come with me. You too, Victoria," he added, peering at her over Jamie's shoulder, and then he appeared to pause for thought. "You'd better bring His Majesty, too. This directly concerns him."

Nodding, Victoria turned and opened the closet door to see Richard looking both harassed and confused. She found time for a pang of genuine sympathy: he'd been through an awful lot in one afternoon – quite apart from the battle – and all of it at the hands of what must appear to him to be a motley band of lunatics. Under the circumstances, she admired the good humour he'd managed to maintain so far.

"You are the master of this house, sir?" he said, straightening his clothing and emerging from the closet, directing a faintly imperious look at the Doctor.

"Er. No, as it happens, I'm not." The Doctor looked at the ceiling for a second with a pinched frown, as if collecting his wits, and then returned his attention to Richard. "I'm afraid there are urgent matters afoot, sire," he went on.

"Then pray, explain them," said the king, folding his arms, his voice and his stance now communicating increasing impatience. "I grow tired of these tricks, to say nothing of the impertinence of your household. I have been treated little better than a peasant!"

As Victoria watched, she saw the Doctor's normally benign countenance freeze solid at once. She'd seen this expression many times before. It was one that usually served to conceal a great deal of anger, and this time, she was very grateful for that. Even so, she could see him forcibly reining in his temper.

"Aside from our earlier misunderstanding," he said, stonily, "I'm confident my young friends have behaved impeccably towards you in my absence.

"Oh, I've no doubt you're used to a lot more deference than you're going to get from me," he went on, relentlessly, as Richard's eyes glazed in shock at being spoken to this way, "but you're just going to have to put up with that, I'm afraid. You're more than five hundred years out of your rightful time, and I really don't have the time to observe royal etiquette, because I don't know how this has happened and right now, for all I know, we may all be in grave danger. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"I...what did you say?" Richard's face, already as pale as cream, somehow whitened even further.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," said the Doctor, tersely. "And now I've got to explain things to our ghost hunters as well, which isn't going to be easy, to say the least. So whenever you're ready, I'll be downstairs."

The door closed, and the click of the latch was the only sound to interrupt the congealed silence. After a few seconds, Jamie gave the king a sidelong look and a chagrined smile.

"He's no' usually so short-tempered, yer Majesty," he said. "Truth is he's no' hisself at all today."

"But he – " Richard began, then flapped a hand and subsided, evidently lost for words.

"You'll get used to him," said Victoria, gently. "And if you'll accept my advice, the best thing you can do is trust the Doctor and do as he says."

"Five hundred years?" said the king, his voice hollow and his eyes still slightly unfocused.

"Five hundred and twenty-eight, to be exact," she told him, uncomfortably, but it was clear that this statement quite failed to sink in. She reached a decision, and steeled herself. "Sire, please come with us. Something's very wrong here and it has to be put right. And the Doctor is the only one who can do that."

She smiled at him encouragingly, and then moved to the door of the bedroom and opened it.

As she stepped through, she was plunged into gloom. Victoria whimpered and spun around at once, looking back the way she'd come, seeking Jamie, who'd been right behind her...but he wasn't there, and nor was the king. Through the open doorway she could see the bedroom, just as she'd left it.

No. Not just as she'd left it. Even in her panic, she could see that the room was different. The shrouding dust sheets were gone, and the room was richly furnished and smelled, very faintly, of beeswax and dried lavender. The curtains were drawn back, and just then the floor was washed by the light of a gleaming silver moon, close to full, as it sailed out of a ragged bank of black cloud. And it was only then that Victoria's brain, struggling to deal with her situation, finally slipped sideways in helpess horror.

It was dark outside.

She had frozen on the spot like a cornered rabbit, but now, two conflicting instincts were battling for control of Victoria's body. Part of her wanted to flee, to run screaming through the house until she found her friends; but in spite of this animal urge, her feet instead carried her further into the room and over to the nearest window.

As she moved, it occurred to her that the room was also cold. Deathly cold, in fact, and as she reached the window and peered out, she saw that the glass was covered in patches of frost here and there, forming delicate traceries and curlicues.

Beyond these, Victoria could see the gardens at the front of the house, and though they were lit only by the moon, she could see that they were also different, and lay quilted beneath a soft, unsullied blanket of fresh snow. The gnarled old oaks at the end of the driveway were much shorter; they were merely bare, skinny little saplings that waved in the harsh winter wind as if painting the sky an even darker shade.

She reached up to wipe some of the condensation from the inside of the window. It was so cold in the room that this, too, was on the point of freezing, and she had to scratch it away with her fingernails, the melting ice chilling her soft fingertips.

Just then, a movement caught her eye, and she saw a large black carriage approaching the house, drawn by two chestnut horses. Their snorting breath formed billowing white clouds of vapour in the freezing night air, making them look a little like dragons and adding yet another touch of strangeness to the scene. As Victoria watched, the driver leapt down from his seat, landing with a soft _crunch_ on the icy gravel drive, and then opened the door.

A man in a top hat and heavy grey frock coat got out first, and then reached up to assist a lady, who gathered her voluminous skirts in one hand before stepping down. Victoria felt a lurch in her heart as she studied the woman's clothing. It was familiar to her and yet, at one and the same time, horribly _unfamiliar_. And it was wrong. So wrong that her hands started to shake and her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. The woman now alighting daintily from the carriage was dressed in clothing from the nineteenth century, not the twenty-first.

Victoria might have remained at the window longer, but then she heard a soft, high-pitched cry from behind her, turned to find its source, and saw a young boy – perhaps six or seven years old – sitting up in bed and staring at her with the blankets drawn up to his face so that only his eyes, round and black with fear, were visible.

"Go away!" he shrilled

"Where am I?" asked Victoria, just as plaintively, but this only seemed to spur the child on to greater heights of terror. He curled up, clutched at the headboard and whined piteously.

"Go away!" he repeated, his voice rising to a thin shriek. "Go away, please go away!"

"I'm not going to hurt you," said Victoria, trying to speak as softly as she could in spite of a rapidly rising tide of fright almost the equal of the child's. "Who are you?"

"_You're not real!_" the boy screamed, and then pulled one of the pillows from the bed and hurled it at her. Victoria raised her hands reflexively and stumbled back – right into Jamie's arms. He winced as she accidentally stepped on his foot and winded him with her elbow, and then she whirled around to face him. The sunlight glanced into her eyes and dazzled her for a second, but once her vision cleared, she threw her arms around the young Scot and hugged him tightly, much to his surprise.

"Victoria? Hey noo, what's the matter?" he asked, patting her shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring fashion.

"I couldn't find you," she cried, her voice slightly muffled against Jamie's shoulder, and then she dragged her head up and looked him right in the eye.

"It was dark, it was snowing, everything was different and you weren't there any more, oh Jamie..." she babbled, her words tumbling and tripping over one another, all attempts at coherency abandoned in her headlong rush to communicate the details of her disturbing vision.

Jamie looked over her head long enough to cast a quick, puzzled glance at Richard, and then returned his gaze to hers and lifted her chin.

"I saw nothin' of the kind," he told her, gently. "Ye walked through the door and the very next second ye was wailin' like a wee babby. That's all I saw, I swear tae ye."

"But it was so real," she said, sniffling softly. "I could feel how cold the room was. I could even _smell_ things. And that poor child," she added, her voice dropping to a murmur.

"What child?"

"It doesn't matter," she replied, pulling herself together and finally loosening her desperate hold on him. "Perhaps I'm just tired. I must be, if I'm seeing things."

"Still, ye should tell the Doctor aboot this," Jamie told her, his eyes searching her face warily, studying her expression with microscopic care. For some reason she didn't like this scrutiny at all. Her mouth twisted and she looked away and down, breaking his gaze.

There was a fallen pillow lying a few feet away on the rug. She gasped at the sight of this and turned back to Jamie, pointing at the pillow. But when she looked back at it again, it was gone, and as a wave of confusion rushed over her, she felt slightly dizzy and sick.

"What're ye pointin' at?" asked Jamie, his brow wrinkling in bewilderment as he followed the line of her arm.

"Nothing," she muttered, lowering her hand.

"Victoria, ye're not a lassie who's given tae wild fantasies," said Jamie, kindly. "An' I still say ye ought tae tell the Doctor."

"Oh, he'll think I'm being foolish," said Victoria, irritably. Right now, she _felt_ immensely foolish, and was in no mood to allow anyone else to confirm it. "Now come along," she added, stubbornly, "we really ought to join the others downstairs. The Doctor's waiting for us."

Stepping through the door once more took all of Victoria's courage, but she was careful not to let this show in front of the two men. Nevertheless, because she was only human, she drew a very deep breath, and reached down and grasped Jamie's hand as she crossed the threshold.

This time, nothing happened. The gallery outside looked perfectly normal, with the afternoon sun bathing the opposite wall and highlighting tiny little imperfections in the diamond-shaped window-panes. Victoria did not relinquish her hold on Jamie's hand as she walked, however. Not even when Richard drew level and glanced down at her, his face a picture of ill ease.

"Your master..." he said, and then stopped, seeming immensely hesitant.

"The Doctor? Yes, what about him?" asked Victoria, politely.

"What manner of sorcerer is he, to work such magic?"

"It's not magic that brought you here, sire," said Victoria flatly, returning his worried gaze for a second. "And the Doctor's certainly no sorcerer."

"Then if it is not witchcraft, what _is_ this?"

"Something worse."


End file.
